Born in Betws-y-Coed, North Wales in 1948 and the youngest of five. James suffered from poor vision from an early age, in 1957 he was sent to London to be fitted with contact lenses, possibly one of the youngest children to do so at the time. After leaving school in 1964 he gained employment with a couple of local employers. It was while working at the second of these employers that his eyesight problems began to develop in 1969.
Here is a short summary of these events:
Suffering blurred vision leading to temporary loss of sight in his left eye for which he was prescribed cream for a probable infection, only to be told 6 weeks later the real cause was a detached retina. After one failed operation carried out locally, he was sent to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London for further surgery resulting in 70% of the eyesight being restored. In 1973 James moved to Bristol to improve his employment prospects Suffering from a detached retina in 1979 in his right eye, for which there was no cure, rendering him totally blind in that eye. Multiple haemorrhaging in the left eye over a period of 3 years in the late 80s-early 90s, eventually leading him to become totally blind in that eye. In 1993 he was registered as a blind person. During this period of deteriorating vision (1969 to 1993), he had to change his career ambitions on numerous occasions, adapting to work in a variety of roles from: The motor trade, catering, bookkeeping and working with some of the most knowledgeable and influential people associated with sight impairment and blindness issues at the time, Bristol Royal Society for the Blind.
After being made redundant in 1994 for a second time James attended a local college and learned how to use computers with the aid of early audio technology
To enhance his new skills he brought his own computer and thus began his early interest in writing fiction.
After persisting and overcoming numerous obstacles during the writing of crime fiction, Ghostly Witnesses, which was intended to be a ‘one off’ story, promoting the book as an unknown author raised other concerns especially after hearing comments made by a well- known high street book retail manager “…if you are not famous or have a ‘kiss and tell’ story, your book will never appear on our shelves…” and by the CEO of the same chain of bookshops “…publishers tend to allocate 50 to 70% of their budgets on books written by famous people, even if the contents or story is poorly written and only a small amount of their budget on ‘unknown’ authors…”